A Study in Bears
by i-love-bradley
Summary: Sherlock and Watson return to a new mystery. But will Sherlock be needing help from someone else with this one? And will he find something else along the way?
1. Chapter 1

**Ok well this started mainly because I was having a quick look for Sherlock stories and well none seem to grab me. So I wrote this to just see what I could do. Please review. **

The phone rang.

"John!" Sherlock called out. There was no answer so he called again. "John!"

"Sherlock!" John answered as he peered out from where he was standing in the kitchen. "What is it?"

"Can you come here and get my phone?"

John came over to where Sherlock sat, at his desk, examining some evidence from their last case. He looked at Sherlock and started searching the desk, rumbling through the items on the desk. "Where is it?"

"In my jacket pocket." Sherlock said without even looking up. John sighed and walked over behind Sherlock, taking out the phone from inside his jacket.

"Hello?" He pressed the phone up against his ear and waited for a reply.

"Sherlock?"

"No Watson. Sherlock is busy at the moment." John glared over at Sherlock who continued his work without even noticing John's glaze. "Who's this?"

"It's Lestrade. We have a case for you. We'll need you here right away." John continued the conversation to get the details of where they were to meet and hung up the phone, placing it on the desk, not bothering to put it back in Sherlock's jacket.

"What is it?"

"We have a case." Sherlock finally looked up when he heard this. He got up from his seat and raced over towards the door, grabbing his scarf and putting it around his neck before opening the door and running out it. He stopped half way down the stairs, paused and ran back up.

"Are you coming?" He asked. He stood impatiently at the door.

John smiled and grabbed his jacket off the chair. "Of course." He raced after Sherlock, who was now already on the street, calling a taxi. He got in the taxi and slide in next to Sherlock.

"What are the details?" Sherlock asked.

"Nothing much. He said the victim was a woman in her twenties. She was..."

"Shot." Sherlock answered for him.

"But how..."

"It says here." Sherlock said as he went through his phone, pointing at the screen. "Police report John. Woman shot, early twenties."

John rolled his eyes. "So why did you ask?"

"I wanted to see if Lestrade had gotten all the details right. You should never fully trust anyone John. They like to leave out... " Sherlock paused and mouthed the words he was reading.

"She's not the first one." He whispered.

"What?" John leaned in to see what Sherlock was looking at but he had already put his phone away.

"Taxi." The taxi pulled over and Sherlock jumped out, John clambering out behind him.

"Sherlock!" John had to run to catch up to him. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock had stopped just in front of the crime scene. The crime tape surrounded the area and Sherlock kneeled down to examine the ground. He took bits of dirt up with his fingers and sprinkled it back to the ground muttering to himself. He got up just as John reached him and lifted up the tape, walking underneath and entering the scene. John sighed and followed after. They came to the side of a sports field and the police and forensics were under the stands. John soon found Sherlock pushing his way through the crowd.

"Move! Give me room!" He shouted as he made his way to the body.

Sherlock bent down near the victim, who was lying face first in the mud under the stands. He studied her clothes. She wore a large grey jacket over the top of her jeans and a short, red shirt. He noticed that there was blood on the jacket and pushed it over with a pencil, which he produced from his pocket.

"Blood, no blood." He whispered as he moved the jacket. He lifted the jacket up and placed it back down. He did this numerous times, muttering to himself the whole time, before moving on from her jacket to her necklace, which hung to one side, slightly tangled, half was covered in blood the other half wasn't. There was dirt under her nails and Sherlock noticed that they were broken on the side on which the dirt was.

"Freshly chipped." He whispered, again to himself.

He got up from his crouched position. John was standing beside him when he did.

"So?" He asked.

"She was shot, that's apparent from the wound on her left side." He pointed to it. "Only a gun could do that. The person was close but the wound is not too opened which suggests that they were more than a few feet away. Her jacket is undone but there is no blood on the clothes on the inside of the jacket nor on the inside of the jacket itself which means that someone opened it later, obviously searching for something."

"Is that all?" Asked Watson.

Sherlock shook his head. "No there's dirt underneath her nails on her left hand. The nails on that side are broken and chipped suggesting there was some kind of struggle where she was in the dirt and clinging onto it but that would only explain the dirt, so she must have been dragged and clinging on tight for her nails to break. There's a small ditch in the dirt out the front, where I was before, she was killed there and dragged here. But she wasn't killed straight away. She dug her nails into the ground herself..."

"Very good Sherlock." Lestrade said as he came up behind him. "We couldn't have done it without you."

"Of course not." Sherlock said. He placed the pencil he had been using back into his pocket. "Where are the others?"

"What others?"

"She's not the first. I'm not that dumb. I noticed the word 'Bears' engraved on her right arm. Now someone lifted up the sleeve of her jacket to do so. But it's not the first time you've seen that is it?"

He was stunned. "Sherlock you are going to have to come with me but not now, tomorrow. There's been one other."

Sherlock nodded. "Shouldn't try to keep things from me. You know I will find them out."

"Well in that case." Lestrade said. "There's something else."

Sherlock looked curious. This was obviously something he had not been expecting.

"What?"

"We've had someone else working on the case before you Sherlock." He motioned behind him. "This is Jade."

A woman about the same age as Sherlock came out from behind. She walked up to them and shook hands with John but Sherlock refused. She was short, with long brown hair. She had dark green eyes and smiled politely even though Sherlock only glared at her.

"Who's this? Why is she doing my job?"

"She's very good. Almost picked up everything you picked up. She..."

"Almost being the important word there. Without me you won't be able to solve this crime. So why don't you send her back."

Sherlock went to walk away but Jade's voice stopped him.

"Did you notice the ring on her right hand?" She asked.

Sherlock turned around. "Yes, with the bear on it. She's..."

"Got a line around her finger though that shows it's not real and she doesn't remove it all that often but she tried to stop it from turning her finger green by painting clear nail polish on it and..."

"That's what caused the white marks on her finger." Sherlock finished. "Still not as good as me." Sherlock turned back around and walked away, John following after.

"You really shouldn't have been that rude Sherlock. She seems to know her stuff." John said as he finally caught up to Sherlock and walked beside him.

"We'll see." Sherlock said with a smile. "If she was that good then they wouldn't need me."

**Please review. First time ever trying to write a sort of mystery story, so reviews would be very helpful. Thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Another chappie up. I hope you like it. Please review it tells me what you do and don't like. Thanks **

**.bradley**

"Sherlock maybe you should give Jade a go." John said as he yet again raced after Sherlock as they went to see the first victim. Lestrade had rung only fifteen minutes earlier and called them into the lab. Sherlock now pushed through the doors, Watson behind him, looking in all directions for the body.

"Sherlock!" Sherlock stopped and saw that Lestrade stood a few feet away talking to one of the lab assistances. "Glad you could make it. You too John." He motioned a nod towards John, who simply nodded back.

"Enough talk, where is she?" Sherlock asked as he pushed past Lestrade.

"First of all how do you know it's a she? And just through here. Jade's in there though, I thought it would take you longer to get here."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Jade will need my help." Sherlock went to walk away but turned back around remembering the first question. "And of course it's a she. This one has a pattern that even you should be able to see already."

"You see Sherlock this is what I was afraid of. You coming in here, demanding things. We need you but Sherlock you gotta stop doing..."

Sherlock put up his hand to silence him and moved away.

Lestrade shook his head and tried to talk again but Sherlock just continued onwards, through the doors, pushing them open with both hands and slamming them into the walls.

Jade jumped when she heard the bang and immediately turned around. "Oh, it's you." She said with a smile.

He moved over to the body.

"What do you see?" She asked.

"I need a bit of quiet."

John came in and took his place next to Sherlock. He had a quick look over the body and stood back.

"What do you see John?" Sherlock asked without looking up. He took a pencil, the same one from before and started to poke around, moving items of clothing and prodding into pockets as he went.

"Well." He cleared his throat. "Um, she has the same marks as the last one did. It's written the same expect that the A is in capitals this time and not the B. Her clothing is dirty, probably from mud that's dried. She was killed somewhere muddy, just like the last victim." John smiled. He was quite pleased with his answer.

"Good John but not brilliant. You notice the obvious; you have to look more closely." Sherlock took the top of her shirt that the victim was wearing and motioned John closer. "See no blood stains." He stood back up.

"So how does a woman, who was stabbed, have a shirt with no blood stains on it? Does anyone have the answer to that?"

Sherlock looked around but everyone shook their heads. "This isn't her shirt. GOD! Look, she is wearing a blue shirt. She matched her shoes with her skirt. Do you think that she is the kind of woman who would wear blue with green? Somebody changed her shirt. Now why would they do that?" Sherlock began pacing. "Because it had something on it! Something that they didn't want anyone else knowing." He was now talking to himself more than anyone else. "What was her name?" Sherlock asked.

"Amy...Amy Denton. She lived with her boyfriend in Sussex. Had a good job, lots of friends..."

Sherlock cut him off. "What about the last one? What was her name?"

"Brittany Parkes. She lived with her husband in Sussex..."

"What's the connection between them though? Why do they both live in Sussex?"

"Sherlock you do realise that the letter that is in capitals on the victim's arm is the first letter of their name?" Jade asked.

Sherlock looked up at her. "Yes of course but Sussex! That's more important."

"We can look into it more but at the moment that's all we got Sherlock." Lestrade said.

Sherlock shook his head and went to leave before stopping in the doorway. "By the way the victim is missing a ring, you can tell from the faint green tint around the underneath of her middle right finger. This one didn't try to hide the fact that the ring was a fake."

Lestrade leaned in and examined the finger. "His right! But Sherlock?"

"Just give the photos of the scenes and the victims to John." He gave a small flick towards John's directional area and left.

John smiled. "Right so that would be great if you could do that soon. I do want to get home."

Lestrade nodded. "Of course." And he left leaving Jade and Watson together.

"You know he doesn't really mean it all, well I don't think so, he just doesn't know how to give people credit or to well be nice to anyone."

Jade laughed. "It's fine. He is quite smart though, isn't he?"

John grinned. "I don't know if you'd called it smart but he is something." John's grin became even bigger. "Why don't you come over for dinner? You know, to make up for Sherlock's behaviour."

Now it was Jade's turn to smile. "I would like that."

"Well alright then."John said just as Lestrade walked back into the room and handed him the pictures.

"I hope this helps."

John nodded his thanks. "Tomorrow at eight." He smiled and left.

Sherlock glared at the pictures in front of him. He walked forward towards them and tapped one with his finger, walking then again back to his original spot before repeating the same ritual.

John meanwhile clambered in the kitchen, trying to find something to cook for dinner that night.

"Why are you making so much noise John?" Sherlock asked.

John peered up from underneath the bench. "Jade's coming for dinner tonight, remember? I told you last night."

"Must have forgotten it." Sherlock mumbled.

"Or you just weren't listening like always." There was crash as John dropped a pot.

"Or I was busy with the case. What do you notice in this photo John?" Sherlock took the photo of the wall above the fireplace and looked at it more closely.

"You don't care what I think Sherlock! Now be nice to her, she is always nice to you. And I think you two could get on quite well."

"Why because she is better than most at noticing things?" Sherlock sighed and flopped down on his chair. "Why bears?" He muttered.

Just then the doorbell rang and Sherlock sighed again. "Must we?"

John nodded. "Now be nice."

"It's so good you could make it." John said as he let Jade into the house.

"Yes just so good." Sherlock muttered sarcastically. He sighed again, lifted himself off the chair as he went to leave but John grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.

"Where do you think you're going?" He whispered.

"Out." Sherlock whispered back.

"That's a great idea Sherlock. I think going out for dinner is much better than staying here."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course John."

"Let's go then." John said. They all walked down the stairs together and Sherlock called for a taxi.

"John you are ruining me."

"It'll be the night of your life Sherlock." He smiled.


End file.
